“Wow, so that’s what my iines look like…”

  Those words escaped the lips of a youth sitting on the ground with his back against a broken wall.

  All around him, the ground trembled with one deafening explosion after another, and the air was thick with the acrid st of smoke and blood.

  Waves of magical energy surged and cshed in every dire, painting the sky in vivid, otherworldly hues.

  Yet, amid this violent storm, he seemed eerily detached, his mind fixated on the surreal spectacle of his own innards.

  Everything from his left shoulder downwards had beeed from existence, while an elbow-length stump was all that was left of his right arm.

  Scars covered his fad his body, blood slowly trickled out from his right nostril, while one jagged scar tore through where his left eye once was.

  This young man was clearly on the verge of death.

  Raising his head, he took in the sight of the sery before him.

  War. age. Bloodshed.

  The ground was littered with blood, corpses and ons. Red was the new colour of what was oranquil, rich pin, which had now bee the stage of a full-blown war.

  The air which would normally be soft and carry a gentle breeze was now deafening loud. The sound of explosions drowned any other sound in the area, something no survivor will ever fet.

  From this youth’s position, he could see the ordinary-looking Humans, the long-eared Elves, the scaled Dragons, winged Angels and the horned Demons.

  It was a five-way battle where tens of millions of them ruthlessly sughtered each other.

  And this man lying here in a pool of his own blood was just a random human soldier. From the torn badge on his right shoulder, it could be seen that he held of Sergeant.

  His rank wasn’t too high or low sidering he was just an Intermediate Grandmaster Realm existence, a Level 390.

  This youth was a child soldier who was drafted during mass scriptions of every able-bodied youth in his vilge at the time, regardless of gender.

  Because of this, this young boy who could barely see his adulthood on the horizon was now embroiled in a war on a p far from home.

  Had fate been kihis young boy’s life would have been one of quiet simplicity. He would have woken each m to the soft light of dawn, his hands roughened from tilling the soil, pnting crops that would sustain his family and vilge.

  The st of earth and fresh grass would have been his daily panions, his heart tent with the rhythms of rural life.

  In the evenings, he would have gathered with his friends beh the golden light of a setting sun, their ughter eg through the fields as they pyed until darkness fell.

  Among them was a girl with bright eyes and a smile that had always warmed his heart—his childhood sweetheart. They had grown up together, their lives iwined like the vines in the fields they worked. He had often imagined a future where they would marry, build a life together, and raise children of their own.

  But now, as he sat amidst the horrors of war on a distant, aliehose dreams felt like a lifetime ago.

  She, too, had been drafted into this unfiving flict, sent to fight on a different p. He used to wonder where she was, if she still thought of him, or if she had moved on, assuming he was lost forever in the vastness of the universe, but eventually, those thoughts faded from his mind.

  The boy had never been trained for war. His skills were those of a simple vilger—on, unremarkable, and he cked the talent for the are.

  Wheime came for him to fight, he had no choice but to pick up a on, so he chose a sword, like the knights in the bedtime stories his father once read to him.

  He fought desperately, with no natural gift for battle, but with a stubborn will to survive. He killed many, and nearly died dozens of times, each brush with death leaving a new scar across his battered body.

  Through sheer determination and the accumution of small merits, he cwed his a few ranks, eventually earning the title of Sergeant.

  But even that hard-won rank offered no safety on this battlefield where survival was a distant hope.

  Here, among Level 700s who could siire isnds and Level 900s who could split the ti apart; this poor Level 390 boy was nothing more than on fodder.

  The battle raged on, but he had been knocked out, caught in a brutal pincer between squads of angels and demons.

  His entire squad was wiped out before his eyes, and the two enemy leaders tag-teamed him, defeating him with merciless efficy before turning on each other in a deadly csh.

  As sciousness slipped away, the boy’s thoughts drifted back to her, to the life they might have had, and the peaceful future that now seemed so far out of reach.

  Feeling his vision dimming, a bitter thought crossed his mind.

  ‘Finally…I’m doh this fug war!’

  As his strength ebbed away, the cacophony of the battlefield seemed to fade into a distant murmur. The world around him, once filled with the roar of explosions and the agic, grew eerily quiet.

  There was no dramatiale, no bze of glory. His death was silent, almost insignifit, lost amidst the chaos of the war that raged on around him.

  He was just another fallen soldier, another number added to the ever-growing toll, one more body among millions, his life extinguished without fanfare.

  And as his eyes finally closed, his st breath left his lips unnoticed, swallowed by the endless storm of violehat tinued without pause, ung of the life that had just ended.

  ◇　◇　◇

  The Universe.

  All of spad time and their tents, prising all knowences, any fual iions, physical processes, stants and all forms of energy and matter.

  The Universe, in its vast and intricate expanse, operated through a myriad of Universal Laws and Aspects, guiding the natural order of existence.

  However, even these ic processes were not without fws.

  Perfe was an illusion, after all.

  Ordinarily, when a persoheir soul would be cimed by the Law of Death and ushered into the cycle of reination—provided it wasn't stolen during the brief moment before the Law of Death acted.

  Uhe soul had been branded or protected by special measures, its memories would be wiped, verted into energy, and used to recreate the soul anew into a pletely differeehe newly fed soul would be distributed to inate into a pletely different body, possibly even from a different race.

  But as stated before, fws could occur in the Universe's processes.

  On the first day of Year 9013 of the 50th General dar, such a fw maed—a gravitational error on a certain Apex World within a high-level dimension.

  [System Alert: Gravitational Error Detected]

  |in: Apex World, Dimension 7589

  Time Stamp: Day 1, Year 9013, 50th General dar, 1907th ic Cycle. |

  …

  [System Alert: Reination Path Distortioed]

  |Impact Zone: Sector 22-B, Reination Path

  Status: Energy densation observed within the affected sector. |

  This errered a surge of energy that rippled across space-time, dist its fabrid affeg a se of the Reination Path. Within this distortion, a portion of the energy densed rapidly and seeped into a newly formed soul, which was about to be sent out for distribution.

  |Error Resolution Matrix Activated. taining energy…|

  Within seds, the System taihe excess energy, but the damage was done.

  [System Alert: Singurity Formatioed]

  |Soul Cssification: Infant.

  Immediate A: Stabilization protocol initiated. |

  The newly minted soul had absorbed a substantial portion of this energy, transf it into a ‘Singurity’—a rare and dangerous anomaly embodying the error that had just occurred in the Universe at that point.

  Singurities, alternatively known as Irregurs or Anomalies, were fws within the Universe's design—untrolble "Bugs" in the "Code" of the os.

  These rare cases were points of uable growth, each so saturated with bugs that the ws of the Universe responsible for bang things out and preventing bullshit from happening pletely and catastrophically break down around them.

  Such immense power was far beyond what the Soul Core of the newly minted soul could withstand. As such, it shattered, erased from existence.

  The energy within the fragile Soul Shell threateo explode, and the System, sensing the impending error, acted swiftly to prevent it.

  [System Directive: Soul Core Rept Required]

  |Search Parameters: Retly deceased soul with suffit energy levels.

  Match Found: Human Soul from P 5622-AD, Dimension 6501

  A: dense and transfer Soul Core. |

  A stronger Soul Core was required—ohat could ehe overwhelming energy of the Singurity long enough for it to fuse with the existence.

  At that precise moment, a random human perished on a distant p, and their soul, cimed by death, ehe Reination Path.

  The Soul had not yet been wiped and the energy from their previous existeill lingered, u.

  The System picked this soul, whose energy was enough to withstand the power of the Singurity, de into a Soul Core and directly transferred it into the Soul Shell that was on the verge of colpse.

  [System Report: Soul Core Transference Successful]

  |Soul Status: Singurity stabilized—340 Mortal Levels ed.

  Memory Status: Retained. Permissible within error tolerance. |

  The Singurity bore down on the Soul Core, and out of 390 Mortal Levels the Soul possessed, 340 of them were ed to withstand the Singurity.

  Sihe soul had beeed immediately upoering the Reination Path, its memories remained intact, however, this was within the range of permissible errors, and thus the Universe allowed it.

  With the Singurity stabilized, the System performed a final crosscheck for any remaining errors.

  |Loggience of New Singurity Existen Atheia Universal Database. |

  [System Finalization: Error tai plete]

  |Crosscheck Results: No additional errors detected.

  Soul Status: Ready for distribution. |

  Finding he soul was released for distribution as inally intended, and the Universe resumed its operations as though nothing had ever gone awry.